Flower
by Squire of Gothos
Summary: After I awoke on the beach, alone, she was the one I found as I wandered the barren wastelands. She who rescued me, gave me hope. My flower.
1. Chapter 1

She's my flower. No, I wish she was, and maybe that's why it hurts. She's a flower, and I wish she was mine. By now, everyone that's coming back is probably already back. I listen to the news every day in hopes that more of the people I killed have returned, but there hasn't been a resurrection report for over a month now.

I honestly don't know why she spends time with me, the way I've been lately. Even so, I know it's not just me she looks at. Like a bloom that just pushed it's way out of the earth after a cleansing rain, she's been slowly opening up.

I look forward to the time we spend together, because that's the time she sends her radiance in my direction. I try not to get jealous, I try not to think about the fact that she looks at everyone the same as she looks at me. I know she does that, I've seen it. But then, what right do I have to be jealous? I don't dare ask if she remembers, if she has the memories she lost when she sacrificed herself for me during the war. Because I don't dare ask, I don't have the right to expect things, to expect what I so desperately want.

Everyone is an opportunity to her. People all seem to be the same when it comes to her newfound openness. I've seen her give that same shy innocent smile to a stranger not a half hour after blessing me with it. The simplest courtesy, a solitary nod, or a single word, she responds to them as if they meant everything to her. And they do, since she avoided people all her life during the war. She's just finding out what it means to open up, to get close to someone, even if it's just a 'hello' to the person she passes on the street.

She's outreached me, that's also part of it, I guess. Even I was more open to others than she was during the war, but now she's blooming into a beautiful flower that I'll never be able to match. I was all she knew after she awoke from where I found her in a grassy field off of the beach. I saw recognition when she opened her eyes and looked up at me, but that was all. I know it isn't fair to say it like that, or to try to hold her back just so she'll spend more time with me.

Besides, all I have to do to spend more time with her is work up the courage to ask. She always says yes, always with that radiant smile, and it hurts, because I think about whether she's freely given that smile and that yes to another, when I'm not there.

Even as I look at her now, one seat to my right, as she watches the movie we've chosen to see, it hurts, and at the same time it feels so good. The rapture in her face at seeing the moving pictures and their story. The free laughter when the dialog or the slapstick tickles her. The sparkling tear when something moves her, or makes her sad. It's all there, out in the open, and she's not afraid to show it.

Just being around her has helped me open up a little, because you can't help but laugh a little more freely, or talk a bit more openly when the person next to you is doing the same. Even so I know I'll never be as free as her. I still don't know how she does it. She simply doesn't care what others might think about her, or she doesn't know that she should care. And who am I to say she should care? I wouldn't think to change a thing about her. Except maybe that I hope she would look at me more.

The movie's over, and she's thanking me, with her eyes and her words, for a great evening. As I walk her back to her apartment, her hand brushes mine, and she spontaneously takes my hand, looking at me with that happy smile. I don't know what to do, what to say, what to think. She doesn't make any demands, nor does she expect anything, she never does. She's happy with whatever I manage to come up with, even if it's just a line of stuttering, or silence.

Part of me hopes she'll go farther, while part of me fears that she'll do just that. If she does, it might mean she's done so with someone else, too. That first part of me wants to get closer to her, to see how far she's willing to do, but the other part is afraid she'll take what she's learned, and go that far with someone else. No matter how much I curse and rail against that horrible, selfish, negative part of me, I just can't do anything.

We're at her apartment, and I can't ask to go in, to have tea with her, to kiss her. I stop, and she continues forward, our joined hands, somehow forgotten, stretching between us. She glances back, that same damning happy carefree smile gracing her lips. Our fingers slide out of each other, and I wave, numbly. She waves back, the door closes, and she's gone.

Gone, until I can once more find the courage to ask her to spend time with me.


	2. Chapter 2

She's not my flower, and that's for the best, I think. If I were to claim her, to pick her like a wildflower in a field, she'd die. Her carefree attitude, that innocent smile, it would all pass away and change. I don't have the right to enslave her, to kill her innocence. Even so, I can't keep myself from wishing, hoping against hope. But at least I can enjoy the occasional date, as often as I can work up the nerve to ask.

The wrench I'm holding is almost as long as I am, and I use it to give the massive nut in front of me one more heave, just to make sure it's tight. I nod at the construction overseer, who waves back. "Good enough, Ikari!" he yells gruffly. "Take the rest of the day off!" From him, that's high praise, and the others around me know it, giving grudging nods of respect.

I take my hard-hat off, breathing out a sigh of relief at the end of a good hard day's work, and catch a sight that makes my heart skip. Seeing her always does, even when her smile is towards someone else. Old Hiroshi is standing there, hands in his pockets, about as red as I've ever seen him. The blue-haired ethereal figure laughs suddenly at whatever he was saying, and he scratches the back of his head, looking more embarrassed and pleased than ever.

I walk up, and I can still see a little wetness near the edges of her eyes. "Hi-Hiroshi tells the funniest stories," she gasps, her arm unconsciously threading through mine, making me fight to suppress a blush. "Go ahead, tell him the one you just told me..." Her enthusiastic gestures nearly loosen the tongue of the hardest man on the site where I'm working.

"Aw stoppit," he finally mumbles. "Ikari's heard 'em all before." He beats a hasty retreat, though I know the look in his eyes as he walks away. _You take care of her, Ikari. She's special._

Believe me, I know.

Lights, multi-colored and moving, holographic illusions, the stretching rails of a coaster that looks like it might kill you with that drop. The Tokyo-3 nightlife is as bright as ever in the one amusement park residing within its borders, and as far as I know the girl hanging on my arm has never been there.

The happy innocence, the bright curiosity, her wide-eyed stares, it's a joy just to walk by her side and watch her reactions. She's poetry in motion, and for the rest of the night I get to watch her, to be with her. To be reminded of just how lucky I am, and at the same time, just how far she is out of my reach.

Her bright eyes, how she grabs my arm and points at different landmarks when we're at the top of the giant ferris wheel. How she stumbles against me after we get off the coaster of death, the sheer terror in her eyes replaced by shaky laughter as she desperately hangs onto my arm while she regains her balance. I know it's all going to be engraved in my mind till I die.

When we leave, the night late and the streets dark with shadow, I can feel the let-down. It's worse each time. No matter how good I feel when I'm with her, it only feels worse when we're apart, and I know I'm going to have to do something soon. I'm either going to have to pick her, or leave her alone.

If I pick her, I know it'll only be a matter of time before her beauty fades, her liveliness dries up. If I stop asking to be around her, she'll always be in full bloom.

Until someone else claims her.

Yet I have no right to try to keep others from her. I can only hope there's someone out there who can transplant her, who can love her and preserve her life and innocence. Someone who can give, as opposed to always asking. Always needing, like I would be.

I'm damaged goods. After coming back, alone, on that beach, I've never been the same. The only thing that keeps me going is watching the bright innocence of the girl beside me, watching her open up and bloom, sharing her radiance with me and everyone else lucky enough to be around her.

But not people like the guy who's just walked up to her, and is engaging her in conversation. She's a little hesitant, but he's a smooth-talker, and what can I do? Tell him to leave? It's like he's ignoring my presence completely, ignoring that we're on a date.

At the man's persistence, she tells me that she'll be alright, that the man will see her home.

Who am I that I can tell her she's wrong? Never will I come out and say she's naïve, only innocent. And I wish to preserve that trait, but my own reluctance has brought about this... this thing. It's let me walk away, knowing if I try to protest, she'll wonder. After all, isn't the man just trying to be polite? He just wants to talk to her, spend time with her, like I want to. That would be what she sees.

For a few long minutes I actually fully heed her wishes, and trudge the path towards the place I call home. Reason kicks in, though, after five long minutes, and my steps turn. I jog back the way I came, hoping to see them slowly walking down the street towards her apartment.

Fear grips me, but I hope I'm wrong, that the man isn't a predator. Why did I ever agree to leave? And if I left, why didn't I follow them from a distance? I curse myself when I find the street empty, the air silent. She and he could be anywhere, she could be in danger, and it's all my fault.

Frantically looking down side streets and alleyways, my ears pick up a faint scream. I don't consider myself to be in the greatest shape, and in my own eyes I'm not all that powerful. Of course I'm a construction worker, and my wiry frame helps hide whatever strength I have.

All I remember is a blur of movement, finding him crouching over her shivering form where he had pushed her onto the street, making her trip over the sidewalk. She was sitting there, fear clouding her eyes as she shied away from him, a hand over her mouth as she wondered what would happen. Her blue skirt and blouse were soiled, like a flower that had been stepped on, crushed into the ground by the malevolence of someone who simply enjoys watching others suffer.

He didn't even see me until I hit him, and one strike was all it took. I really didn't know my own strength, and now the girl most precious to me, my flower, broken and shivering on the ground, was looking at me with the same frightened eyes she had turned on her abductor. I had made her scared of me.

My heart clenched, and I knew it was too late. What I had feared had come to pass even though I had tried to avoid it. I had done everything I thought was right to protect her innocence, and it was gone, just like that.


	3. Chapter 3

My flower is alive, and still beautiful. I know this, assure myself of this when I see her every so often. She's bounced back from the horror I allowed someone to inflict on her, and her smile still graces the streets when she walks, and greets those she meets on her way, but the pure innocence is marred.

No matter how many times it rains, even if all the dirt from that vengeful shoe that crushed her is washed away, things will never be the same. The stem will be bent, maybe a petal askew, showing so clearly to those that know what to look for that someone has marred her beauty. Someone tried to take advantage of her innocence, and she was saved, only because the friend that should have protected her was at least smart enough not to abandon her completely in his stupidity.

We've gone out a few times since then, but it hurts to see the shadow of that fear whenever I walk with her. The fear present because now she knows what I'm capable of. What I'm willing to do to another human being to protect her.

I see her less and less, and I know it's only a matter of time.

Soon, one day, after a long period of drought, I discover what I hoped I would never see. Pushing the buzzer for her door, a stranger answers. With the airiness I recognize from another previous acquaintance, she tells me that the one who lived there has moved. She gives me a demure smile as I apologize for bothering her, and I turn to leave before she can try to thrust herself onto me.

I'm just not ready to get close to another, the grief is still too fresh. And grief over what? The loss of a flower, one whose beauty I was blessed to see for as long as I did. It's not like we were a couple, as much as I wanted it to happen, and at the same time feared it.

But the grief is still there. Weeks go by, months, but nothing. Just for the heck of it, I go on a date with the woman in my flower's old apartment. It's almost humorous how close she is to the red-head I used to call my fellow-pilot, before I let her die on the battlefield. Her brashness, her pride, I know just how to deal with her, and perhaps I'm remembering all the mistakes I made with my dead fellow-pilot.

At the end of the night, standing at the door to her apartment, she's looking at me with some mixture of amusement and disbelief. I'll admit, if I were meeting her cold, without my previous experiences with someone like her, I'd probably have flubbed things. I nod, thanking her for a great night, knowing that any more would impinge on her pride, and she simply smiles. As I turn to go, she steps forward quickly, and before I know what's going on, it's over.

I only remember stumbling backwards, catching sight of her laughing eyes as she shuts the door. The soft sensation of her lips still buzzes on mine, and I stand there for perhaps ten minutes before leaving. My first true kiss has been stolen from me, since I don't count my previous abortive attempt. At the time, the girl in question held my nose, and afterwards washed her mouth out.

Days pass, weeks, and I continue going out with the woman in the apartment of the one I used to love. Still love, as impossible as that sounds. Soon enough, I make a mistake, get slapped, and once again find myself alone in the night.

Lying in my bed in the early morning, my mind wanders the realms of consciousness before I fall asleep, and I think of my flower. Where is she right now? Has someone already picked her? Perhaps with the loss of her innocence, she is able to prevent that. Or maybe she's already found the one who can properly protect her, and look after what beauty she still has.

* * *

Yeas go by, and I continue my slow walk through life. The world has almost returned to normal, from the hell I plunged it into so long ago. I'm still alone, but by now I'm comfortable with it. I have my friends, my co-workers, and I'm almost happy.

I've almost been able to forget the happy times I used to spend watching the bright innocence of the one I drove away with my stupidity, my thoughtlessness. Even so, some nights I'll awaken with tears streaming from my eyes, fresh from a happy dream. I'll squeeze my eyes shut, trying to return to that dream world where she and I are happy together.

One evening lit by the orange and reds of a sunset streaming through an open window, I'm just finishing supper when a knock sounds at my door. Maybe it's one of my friends, coming over for a game of cards. I grab the deck and pull out another chair on the way to the door.

I reach out and pull the door open, and my mind nearly shuts down. The deck of cards slips from my limp fingers.

My flower has come back to me.

She's just standing there, not saying a word. She looks a bit slimmer from when I remember her, and there is a wariness in her eyes that was not there even in the days after I knocked out a man to protect her.

But she's there, her smile almost as radiant as I remember, even if her eyes are a bit sad. I don't know what to do, what to say, but she's used to that. She reaches up a hand, slowly, as if she expects me to scream at her, or throw her out for leaving without even a word. Her trembling hand touches my face, and the hope in her eyes grows.

I reach out and touch the side of her cheek, perhaps reminding myself of her reality, and our faces draw closer. I can see the wetness at the edges of her eyes clearly now, and I can feel the sadness at the back of my throat.

We kiss, hesitantly at first, then with a hunger, a need I've never felt before. Everything fades away, the surroundings, the fears that someone will suddenly come upon us. There's nothing except the feel of her against me, her tongue inside my mouth. She's the teacher this time, and I can't be sad any longer. I'm not coming up for air any time soon, and even when I do, I'll never let go of her.


	4. Chapter 4

Well, my flower and I had a few happy years together after that. Really, what more needs to be said? She left me with you, and while no one can replace her, you surely come close. Sometimes, when I watch you sleep, I'm reminded of her, and I can't hold back the tears.

Tears I can freely show to others. I'm no longer afraid to show a lot of things to others, now. She gave me that much, before she left me. Left me, and the world, permanently. At least this time it wasn't by choice, and it wasn't because I didn't protect her.

I only wish I could protect you, daughter, when my time comes. Actually I'm laughing now, and crying at the same time, because if you're reading this, it means I'm already dead. However it was that I went, be it natural (I hope), or accidental, please know that I love you, that I've always loved you.

If there's any good at all that comes out of this, maybe it's that I'm probably where your mother is, now. I guess my final words to you are, when you're ready, when it's your time to follow me, don't be afraid. I'll be here, waiting to welcome you.

-Shinji

_Stupid Shinji._

_Stupid, stupid Shinji..._

The small thirteen-year-old form sprawled in a beanbag tossed the papers aside, same as she always did after reading them. Her long pastel-green hair was offset by her vibrant blue eyes, which were rimmed from crying.

She always cried when reading the short 'autobiography' her father had left her. It was why she didn't do it much.

Only when the need grew too strong. When she wanted nothing more than to be held in her father's strong arms, or listen to her mother tell another of her stories. Her mother could have been an actor, she was so free with her movements and expressions.

_It wasn't enough that I finally managed to come back. You just had to leave me alone again, didn't you?_

But at least she could take comfort in the fact that, this time, she had been given parents who loved her. Parents who always looked at her.

_At least this time you looked at me, Shinji._

End

* * *

A/N: Actually, just as Lilith's Gift is the extremely long version of Embrace of Infinite Dreaming, I'm considering making a long version of this, so perhaps all the questions in the reviews will be answered after all ;-p


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